Monday, December 15, 2014

Video Of The (Past) Week: Jeffrey Lewis

It's pretty hard to fathom that I haven't featured this one yet, as I watch it at least a few times per week and listen to it daily, as I have for the better part of the last decade, since 2005's City & Eastern Songs, which this track is from.

Director Mark Locke does a fine job of just sticking to the lyrics - an innocent Jeffrey Lewis annoying his idol Will Oldham on the NYC subway to the point where the ''master'' ends up raping the ''apprentice'' on empty train tracks, akin to Oldham's own song A Sucker's Evening (off of the Palace record Arise Therefore).

Sure, 2014 isn't the ideal place in which to view a rape metaphor, particularly one in which the victim then has the revelation that in the end, the music industry ''fucks'' all artists who dare share their thoughts and ideas, as a system.

Many have seen Lewis ''feminizing'' himself by being on the receiving end of the rape, and therefore associating ''womendom'' with ''weakness'', and it's fair to say that in 1500 years of Anglo-Saxon arts history, literature and politics, there is a bit of a systemic bias towards giving men more authority than women - at times, even more rights. Religion is good at that, too. But I do feel that Lewis had no such designs, even subconsciously - he's pretty good and consistent on keeping his ''penis-having'' in check.

I'll write later this week (I hope) about where I see our society heading in terms of equality and power struggles (ask me today and I'll say I think we're fucked, and provided we don't start everything over from scratch, will remain so forever), but for now, I thought I could just throw this superb low-budget time bomb out there:

Writer, mostly, in mediums diverse and similar: musician, film-maker, poet - not the bad type, nor the pretentious type. It's more that I suck at everything except producing words and shouting ideas at people. Oh, and I'm the guy who brings you UnPop Montreal yearly, helping the little guy get a voice in this variety-deprived city.